"Kyle and Marta" (A chapter from "The Dome")

Kyle Washington did indeed have a gun, a 9mm pistol that the store's owners kept under the customer service desk next to the safe. They'd been big city folk and had been robbed multiple times during their years of operating similar stores there, and they'd learned that they couldn't always rely on the police to prevent crime in their neighborhood. Oh, it wasn't because the police weren't reliable but was instead because the criminals and the crimes they were committing outnumbered the police dramatically. It was the primary reason they'd finally abandoned the big city and come here to Chester's Mill, population 1,444.

Kyle had adjusted three of the four little security monitors at the customer service desk to watch the wannabe looters outside as they were trying to entice him to open the doors by vandalizing the store. Like that's going to work, he thought to himself. Come on in! Bring your bats and tree limbs and bricks and stuff. What do I have to fear. Idiots!

Then on the fourth monitor, which was cycling through images from the store's interior cameras, Kyle caught sight of someone. He quickly flipped the camera back to the previous camera and found a girl with a back pack standing in the middle of the store room looking right up at him with an Oops, caught in the act expression.

He hopped off his stool and ran for the back, popping through the Employees Only door with the pistol raised before him at the young woman. He froze for a moment, simply staring at her; she was incredible! But he finally regained himself and employed his most threatening voice, which likely wasn't fear-inducing in the least, to ask, "Who are you? What are you doing here? How'd you get in here?"

Marta froze in place. It wasn't the first time she'd had a gun pointed at her. But each time, including this time, was just another opportunity to see her short life ended. So she took each time seriously. Well, sort of seriously as the next moments would show.

Honestly, though, she felt less fearful than did the boy holding the gun before her. Oh, he was a man, legally anyway, at just a bit past 18 years of age. But she didn't know that at the moment of course. All she knew was he had his finger on the trigger and looked potentially twitchy. She lifted her hands out a bit to her sides. One held the back pack, the other a box of Hostess treats.

"You gonna shoot me over a box of Twinkies?" she asked softly. "Tell you what, I'll give up the Twinkies and trade ya for Ho Ho's"

Kyle's mind was overwhelmed with concern for the store, fear for his life, and lust for this young thing standing before him. It wasn't like he'd never seen a beautiful woman before. Chester's Mill had its share of them. Only, none of them had ever shown an interest in him.

He maintained the handgun's aim on the woman as he continued his search for answers, "What are you doing in here? You shouldn't be in here! How'd you get back here?"

The real question he wanted to ask the girl who seemed relatively close to his own age was Do you have a boyfriend, and if not, do you want one?

(OOC, That was funny btw.)

"I walked through the front door while you were selling some woman a bottle of wine and12 boxes of Huggie's diapers," Marta answered with a touch of annoyance. She nodded her head toward the gun and asked, "Seriously, dude, are you gonna shoot me over sugar and partially hydrogenated corn oil or what?"

Kyle didn't immediately register that the woman was speaking about the gun in his hands. He was still a bit overwhelmed by the situation. Finally, though, he lowered the 9mm to his side. About it, he only said, "Sorry. I, um. I've, uh, I've never even held a gun before. The owners didn't even tell me it was here. I saw them with it one time."

There was another crashing sound that caused him to flinch. Kyle backed up enough to see the front. He was fearful that at any moment some wannabe looter would drive a pickup truck through the metal security gates to gain access.

"Listen, I, um," he started after looking back to the girl. Not having any idea what he was going to say, he finally got out, "I'm Kyle. I work here."

Seeing the gun lower, she lowered her own hands. When he introduced himself, she responded, "Marta. It's Martina, actually, after Martina Navratilova."

Kyle's lack of reaction led Marta to explain, "The tennis player...?"

Still nothing.

"Whatever," she said. She would explain later if she needed. There was yet another crashing sound and angry yells from those outside who wanted inside. Marta held out a hand and nodded toward the gun. "Gimme that."

She gave Kyle a moment, the reassured him, "Trust me. I'm not gonna shoot anyone, least of all you."

Kyle looked between the gun and the stranger who was inside his locked store asking for it. "I dunno."

But he'd always been a trusting kind of guy. Naïve and gullible were probably the more appropriate words. Despite Marta having told him that he could trust her, Kyle asked, "How do I know you aren't going to use it against me?"

She answered, and he believed her. Cautiously, he turned the weapon away from her and held it out. He asked, "What are you going to do with it?"

(OOC: I have to get offline for about 10 minutes. Be right back.)

"How do I know you aren't going to use it against me?"

Marta smiled, then laughed. She lifted the box of Twinkies and told him with humor, "They say these things'll kill you, what with all the sugar and chemicals in them. If I'd wanted to hurt you, I would have just made you eat the whole box."

It must have worked, because he handed out the gun. Marta took it, then with obvious skill checked it. She kicked the clip out to check the number of rounds in it. It was full. She slammed it back in, then pulled back the slide to see if there was a round in the chamber. There wasn't. She showed that to Kyle and said, "Well, at least you wouldn't have killed me on accident.

Kyle asked, "What are you going to do with it?"

"I'm going to protect your store," she said. She headed toward the front with determination as she called back to him, "If they come in here after my Twinkies, I'm afraid I might have to kill someone."

Reaching the front of the store, Marta lifted the gun high enough to ensure she didn't hit anyone but low enough to ensure the rounds left the store. Then she began pulling the trigger. She loosed six shots over the head of the crowd. Outside the store, that crowd panicked and scattered as many of its members screamed. Soon enough, the debris littered sidewalk beyond the security grill barricade was clear of people.

"See?" she said as she turned to Kyle with a delighted smile. "Got the Twinkies all to ourselves now."

Kyle was a bit -- no, a lot -- surprised at how well Marta handled the pistol. It was obvious that she'd used one before. Suddenly, his fear of her killing him and taking control of the store returned. Gangsta Girl, he thought, recalling a graphic novel idea he'd begun playing with a few years back before he realized that he couldn't draw for shit.

As Marta headed for the front of the store, Kyle fell in behind her. Suddenly, she was shooting at the crowd, bam-bam-bam-bam-bam-bam! Kyle crouched down behind the checkout counter, now even more certain that ever that he'd let his lust for Marta's slim, delicious body get him killed.

Out beyond the steel barrier, the crowd dispersed to waning screams of panic. He looked up over the counter in time to see Marta smiling at him.

"See? Got the Twinkies all to ourselves now."

He couldn't help but smile, then laugh. "You're crazy! I think I'm in love."

As soon as he said the words, Kyle's face filled with horror. Fuck! He wanted to crawl into a hole and die of embarrassment.

Marta smiled wider at the young man's profession of love for her. She responded, "You'll get over it. Everyone does."

She set the gun on the nearby counter and reached for her belt. She watched Kyle closely for his reaction as she loosened it. But then her smile widened and she laughed. She fastened the belt again, this time looser.

"Needed the room," Marta told him.

She picked up the gun again, tested the barrel for temperature, then slipped the warm weapon into the small of her back where it now fit within the loosened belt. Looking about the smashed window, she told him, "We need to better secure the store front. They didn't get in this time, but they will eventually."

She began moving about looking for stuff as she continued, "We need fire extinguishers in case they throw Molotov Cocktails. If they can't have what's in here, they might try to keep us from having it by burning this place to the ground. Baking soda. We need to bring up all the baking soda. It's sodium bicarbonate, and when you put it on a fire, it becomes sodium carbonate, without the bi prefix. Starves the fire of oxygen and puts it out."

Marta caught Kyle looking at her and laughed. "I get bored. Watch a lot of YouTube. Never know where the links are going to take you. I was watching videos on Egypt and somehow ended up at how to put out a fire without a fire extinguisher."

She continued onward, telling Kyle they needed to make weapons to protect themselves. "Non-lethal, of course. We're not trying to kill anyone. Just keep them from killing us."

Marta knew Kyle was a bit overwhelmed by all this. She pulled up close to him and took him into a tight embrace for a long moment. She pulled back to look him in the eyes. "I know this sounds crazy. But, I'd rather be prepared and not need to be than to be need to be prepared and not be. Agreed?"

She kissed him on the lips, softly but suggestively. She wanted him to believe that he could trust her. And, honestly, she wanted him to think that if he did things her way, he just might have the chance to get naked with her at some point.

"You'll get over it," Marta said when Kyle spontaneously said he loved her. "Everyone does."

He had a pretty good idea what she meant by that. He'd been through a great deal of social and family upheaval in his life. Had she, too? Or was she just feeling sorry for herself.

Kyle didn't have much of a chance to worry too much about it as Marta set them on a path to secure the store that went far beyond his lowering the security gates. He was very impressed with her from the start. Where had she learned all of this? Television? Movies? The internet? Or -- and this was a bit scary -- from her own real life?

They went to work, and a couple of hours later Kyle felt a lot better about the safety of the store and of the two of them. Some people who hadn't been part of the near-riot or had been but were now acting more politely came up asking to buy things. Kyle told them he couldn't open the gates but that when things settled down, he'd let them have head of line privileges.

He was still a bit overwhelmed by it all. And Marta must have known this, as well as how to deal with it. Suddenly, she was against him and pressing her lips to his. Kyle's eyes grew huge with surprise. Over the next seconds, his cock would do the same.

He could barely take his eyes off her after than, not that he'd been able to do so for long even before the embrace. Marta was simply the most incredible woman to whom he'd ever been so close.

"What are you doing here?" he asked after they'd taken a moment to sit down and relax. "I mean, in Chester's Mill. You're not from here. Town's not that big, and believe me, I wouldn't have forgotten meeting someone like you."

Marta smiled wide at Kyle's round-about compliment. "Well, thank you very much, kind sir."

She hopped up, curled around a corner out of his sight, then returned with two beers from the cooler. She set one next to Kyle, not knowing whether or not he'd drink it. She screwed off the cap of her bottle and took a swig. She contemplated how to answer Kyle's question. Truth? Lies? Omission? A bit of each?

"I met a couple of frat guys at a party," she began her confession. "They were heading home this morning for the weekend, and they were going my way. They had some really good pot, and I wanted to partake. I told them that if we could leave last night instead of this morning, and if they'd share their weed, they both might get lucky with me on the way."

She studied Kyle for his reaction to what she'd said thus far. It had all been true up to this point. But she had a feeling that it might be better to switch to non-truths for the rest. "I wasn't going to do anything with them, of course. I was making out with one of the guys in back, that's all. But when they tried to take me up on my offer and I refused, they pulled over and dumped me out on the side of the road."

Marta sipped at her beer again. And again she studied Kyle for his reaction. How would he have reacted if she'd admitted the truth. That as one of the frat boys had been driving toward Chester's Mill, she'd been fucking the second one in the back seat. That when they were nearly here, they'd pulled over and traded spots.

"I saw lights in the distance and started walking," she continued the lie, "and I ended up here in your store."

In reality, the second frat boy had finished with Marta just as they were coming into town. She'd convinced them to pull over at the town's only 24 hour convenience store. And when they went inside for beer, she took off running into the dark of the park with their dope but little more.

She sipped again, then considered how she'd presented herself to him. "I'm not a slut, Kyle. I don't sleep with guys I only just met. I would never have had sex with those guys. I just wanted to get high and get home. Unfortunately, I only made it to Chester's Mill."

She smiled to him flirtatious like, then added, "Or, maybe fortunately."

"I met a couple of frat guys at a party," Marta began.

Kyle was instantly concerned. He knew this story was going to have a horrific end for Marta and her honor. But she reassured him that she'd done nothing more than make out with one of the guys. Then, she implied that being here with Kyle made up for being stuck in Chester's Mill. He smiled at that. No one other than his foster parents had ever shown happiness in having him in their life.

"Would you like to be my partner?" he asked. "In the store, I mean. I don't mean, you know--"

He feared that Marta might think he meant sex partner. He'd already told her he loved her, even if it had only been an expression of his joy at the moment.

Kyle explained about how the owners had left for the game and were obviously cought outside the dome. "That means I'm in charge. That's why I'm protecting it. I'm have to. But, you could help me. I mean, if you were interested."

If she said yes, he'd make some suggestions on what they could do. They had clean up to do, obviously. And more security steps. And if they were going to reopen again, they had to find a way to do so without being overrun.

"I think we could make a really good team," he said, hopeful Marta agreed.

Marta smiled at the invitation. She quickly responded, "Of course!"

She liked Kyle. There were lots of reasons to like him. One of them was that she could manipulate him. She was sure of it. The way that he looked at her? At her body? Marta knew that so long as she kept tempting him with the prospect of sex, she had him. But she also wanted Kyle to believe that he was in charge. She drained her beer, stood, and asked, "So, partner. Where do we start?"

(OOC: I'm ready to go back to the main thread if you don't think there's anything more to be done here. )

"So, partner. Where do we start?"

Kyle smiled, tickled absolutely pink about where this was going. He was getting a girlfriend. Wasn't he? If they spent enough time together, they'd surely become girlfriend-boyfriend. That was how it worked, didn't it?

They talked about the store for an hour while finishing off a couple of more beers, then got to work. By night fall they had a plan for selling goods safely and had even painted and mounted a sign behind the security grill telling anyone who showed up that they'd be open in the morning.


(OOC: Yes, let's go back to where we started this so that I can do something with the Mayor, who I am going to introduce in my next reply.)

(OOC: So, we are picking this thread back up after dark had fallen the first day of the dome.)

Marta Jackson with Kyle Washington
Inside the shut up City Market
9pm

The mayhem of the morning had waned only to resume as soon as night fell. Marta and Kyle had secured the market that he in theory owned now as much as they could. All they could do now was sit behind the now fortified front wall of the Customer Service Desk and hope no one busted in before dawn.

"You know, I've never understood it," she mused as they sat facing one another. "Shit happens in your hometown, whatever town it is. A white cop shoots a black man. A black man rapes a white woman. A college girl is raped, or worse, a 10 year old, and the cops can't arrest the guy who everyone believes is guilty. Whatever it is, doesn't matter. What's the first thing everyone in the neighborhood does? Riot and loot the stores and burn down their neighborhood. Their neighborhood! There own fucking neighborhood! Remember that thing in St. Louis. No, it was a suburb, I don't remember the name. White cop kills a black teenager. What's the first thing the blacks in that neighborhood did? Destroyed their own neighborhood. They didn't go to the cop's neighborhood and destroy it. They didn't even go across town to a white neighborhood or a Hispanic neighborhood or a Korean neighborhood. They burned down their own fucking neighborhood. Looted the very stores they shopped in."

She went quiet for a moment. "Now, this happens, and instead of working together to try to figure out what to do. Fuck! What's wrong with people?"

Again Marta went quiet but then suddenly hollered, "Ferguson! It was Ferguson."

She didn't go on any more about it. The Ferguson shooting or the mayhem that followed it wasn't her point, of course. The point was that if everyone had just stayed calm this morning, none of them would be at home right now wiping their butts with newspaper or making diapers out of white tee shirts because they ran out and the store was closed.

"C'mon," Marta said, suddenly standing and offering Kyle a hand as she returned the 9mm to the small of her back. "I have an idea."

She led him down the main aisle to the back storage room of the store. There they'd used a Disney Princesses slumber party tent and two blowup pool mattresses as the basis for their sleeping accommodations for the evening. There had only been one sleeping bag on the shelf, though. So Kyle had offered it to Marta and then folded and rolled a 10x12 foot plastic cargo tarp this way and that to create somewhat of a sleeping cocoon for himself.

"This isn't going to work," she told him with a confident tone as she took the bedding out from inside the tent, leaving only the mattresses. "The power is out, there's no heat, and it's probably going to get down into the forties tonight."

They'd gathered numerous burnable heat sources from the shelves and assembled them here. But Marta had argued that tomorrow (after the first night of cold for one and all) those candles, Tiki torches, and canisters of fuel would be worth their weight in gold. "Plus, if we're not careful, we could wake up dead from carbon monoxide poisoning."

She directed Kyle in unfolding, then refolding the tarp. They laid out the sleeping bag again and spread the folded tarp over it. Then Marta said simply, "We'll sleep together. Body heat"

She looked to Kyle for his reaction. She smiled. "You don't mind sleeping with me, do you, Kyle?"